


david rose is not a sad sack

by fleurmatisse



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Bad Matchmaking, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-19 18:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19138366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurmatisse/pseuds/fleurmatisse
Summary: Alexis keeps setting David up on the worst dates, and David keeps running into the same guy afterwards.





	david rose is not a sad sack

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wildhoneypie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildhoneypie/gifts).



David can’t believe he drove all the way to Elmdale to have such a shitty night when he could have just stayed in the motel and continued to ignore Alexis’ insistence that he’s been “sad-sacking around.” Like, what does that even mean? That committing to making a business plan and only leaving the room to go to Rose Family Breakfasts or hang out with Stevie (when she’s not working and doesn’t have other plans) means he’s turning into a sad sack? He scoffs to himself as he grabs a tub of ice cream. He will show her sad-sacking, and this time it will be all her fault.

He’s so set in his righteous quest that he turns to the first person he sees, a guy standing in front of the frozen waffles, and says, “Do they sell spoons here?”

The guy turns, spots David, and looks around the otherwise empty aisle before he raises his eyebrows. “I don’t work here.”

“Yes, obviously,” David says, waving a hand at the guy’s blue button-up and jeans with no name tag in sight. “But this is kind of an emergency, so either you know where the spoons are or you don’t.”

The guy looks at the ice cream currently making icicles out of David’s fingers and smirks. He hitches a thumb over his shoulder. “A couple aisles down, I think.”

As David heads in that direction, the guy calls after him, “Good luck with that emergency.”

David turns, walking backwards toward the end of the aisle to find the guy still smirking at him, so David scrunches up his face like he does to Alexis when she’s being especially annoying. “Thanks so much.”

When he turns around again, he narrowly avoids crashing into a display of pizza sauce. He doesn’t check to see if Frozen Waffles Guy is laughing at him. He’s already been subject to enough embarrassment this evening.

 

“So he told you where the spoons were?” Stevie asks the next day, affecting shock. “I can’t believe he would do that, and after you asked him so nicely.”

David makes a face. He already regrets trying to get Stevie on his side. “Yes, well, he didn’t have to say it like he was laughing at me.”

“I would have laughed at you,” Stevie deadpans. 

“I like to think the entire world is not as insensitive to people in their time of need as you,” David sniffs. “And Alexis is already talking about another date.”

“Just say no,” Stevie says like he’s being an idiot.

“Okay but I said no last time, and somehow I still ended up in Elmdale last night,” David says, waving his hands like the explanation for that will somehow appear out of thin air. He folds his arms on the counter and sighs. “If she never took that job with Ted, I would not be here right now.”

Stevie lays a hand on his wrist, leaning close. “Stay strong, David.” She pats his hand and resumes whatever she’d been doing on the computer when he stormed in. “But stay strong somewhere that I’m not working.”

“Ugh,” David says, but he leaves. He needs new friends. Or just, like, another friend. One that’s more sympathetic to his plights.

 

Alexis comes home one day not bursting with energy, and eventually she lets slip that Ted has a girlfriend. David winds up on a date at another two-star restaurant in Elmdale with a woman named Tiffany who works at said restaurant. Unlike the first date, where David had found himself rambling to the point of nonsense just to keep the conversation going, he can hardly get in a word edgewise, because Tiffany will not stop talking about her cats. 

“Mhm, mhm,” David says about fifteen minutes into a description of their Christmas outfits. He seizes the moment she stops to take a drink to ask, “And how did you meet Alexis?”

“Oh, I had to bring Charlton in to Dr. Mullens’ to get a cyst drained,” Tiffany says.

“Okay!” David exclaims, pushing his plate away. “I am so sorry, but I just remembered I have somewhere else to be right now.”

 

Specifically, he needed to be at the motel yelling at Alexis for setting him up with a crazy cat lady. 

“Okay, David?”  Alexis says like he’s the one being unreasonable and ridiculous. “You dated a hippie woodworker; how was  _ I _ supposed to know that was a one-time thing?”

“Because—No, okay, I am not getting into this with you, right now or ever,” David says. “Just  _ stop  _ trying to set me up.  _ Especially  _ with Ted’s customers. Okay? Can we agree this is officially a terrible idea?”

“O _ kay, _ David,” Alexis says, throwing up her hands in surrender, wide eyes calling him dramatic. She picks up her phone and jabs at the screen while David heads to the bathroom to change. “But you and Tiffany totally could’ve had something.”

“Oh, my God!” David exclaims, slamming the bathroom door so he doesn’t have to witness her potentially being serious. 

Ten cats. The woman had _ten_ _cats_. JVN may not think that’s too many, but David simply cannot agree. What on earth was Alexis thinking.

 

Stevie takes a long lunch a couple days after David’s terrible date with Tiffany and they decide to go to the cafe to pick up some food rather than test their luck with anything that Stevie has stored in her car. On the walk over she’s been laughing at the idea of David surrounded by cats, all in miniature versions of his sweaters, and if that didn’t already make him want to turn right around, seeing Frozen Waffles Guy sitting at the counter certainly seals the deal. David grabs Stevie’s arm.

“Okay but are we really that hungry?” he says, hoping to turn Stevie around before she can grab the door, but she won’t be deterred.

“You literally told me you were going to shrivel up and die if you didn’t get lunch in the next ten minutes,” Stevie says, reclaiming her arm as she walks inside. David hesitates on the sidewalk, avoidance warring with the growling of his stomach. 

“I definitely did  _ not _ say ‘shrivel up,’” he says, falling into step behind her. 

“Sure you didn’t,” Stevie says, leaning against the counter to wait for Twyla’s return. David tries to angle himself so Frozen Waffles Guy won’t be like able to see his face, but Stevie has already caught on to him and shifts so he has to face both of them if he wants to talk to her without looking like a lunatic. 

“Is something bothering you, David?” she asks. 

David raises his eyebrows, glancing over her head before he can think better of it. “No, nothing is bothering me,” he says, and thank God Twyla comes back before Stevie can do more than look at FWG and frown questioningly at David. 

Unfortunately, Stevie allows Twyla to rope her into some talk about someone they went to school with or who worked at their school—David has tuned out by that point—which leaves David vulnerable to FWG looking over at the same time David is checking he hasn’t been noticed. Recognition sparks in FWG’s eyes. Fortunately, FWG only smiles at him and then goes back to drinking whatever it is he’s ordered. 

Stevie comes back, they get their food, and David is relieved to leave the cafe before FWG changes his mind. 

 

The relief lasts until he goes to Ray’s the next day to apply for his business license and when Ray calls for Patrick, who steps out but Frozen Waffle Guy himself?

The meeting goes horribly. David is flustered the entire time, and then Patrick tells him his business is a terrible idea. At least David gets to tell Stevie his initial impression of him was right.

 

David is on another date. Alexis had sprung it on him after Stevie talked him down from his  _ oh god this business  _ is _ going to fail _ moment and he didn’t have a good enough excuse to say no, so here he is walking into The Wobbly Elm. It’s just as dismal as he remembers it, and he considers backing out like he mistook it for something else but who knows, maybe this date will be worth it. 

He sits at the bar, casting a glance around to be sure he isn’t just missing his date, and sitting at the other end of the bar, no longer blocked by a man in a leather vest, is Patrick. 

“Are you, like, stalking me or something?” David can’t help but ask. 

Patrick looks up from his phone, and when his eyes land on David he smiles for a second before it morphs into what David is quickly learning is his  _ let’s pick on David _ look. “As far as I can tell, you're actually the one stalking me.”

“Excuse me?” David says. 

Patrick sits up straighter, phone abandoned. “Yeah, you know what, you keep showing up after me, talking to me first. I think I’m the one who should be concerned.”

“Okay, first of all, I didn’t talk to you in the cafe,” David points out. “Second of all, there are only, like, three places in this town; it’s obviously a coincidence.”

Patrick raises his eyebrows. David rolls his eyes toward the pool tables to avoid the smirk growing on Patrick’s face. He nods as he talks, hand windmilling as he talks. 

“Yes, now that I’m hearing it, that was maybe a ridiculous thing to ask,” he says. 

“Maybe,” Patrick says. “But for the record, no, David, I am not stalking you.”

“Well that is a relief,” David says, tapping the bar with each syllable, which seems to further entertain Patrick if his smile is anything to go by. David finds himself searching the bar for some safe topic to bring up—would Patrick like to judge that guy’s tragic fashion sense with him? No, he’s once again in a blue button-up, looking far too proper and, well, buttoned-up for not only this bar but most bars David has been to, really. 

“What are you doing here then?” is his brilliant solution to the silence. He resists covering his face with his hands. “I mean—not in an accusing sense.”

Patrick takes pity on him. “I’m working my way through the local haunts,” he says, “trying to get a feel for the place, you know. I’m still pretty new here, so.” He shrugs one shoulder, his smile a little more on the shy side than before. 

David is unhelpfully charmed. “And you’re  _ sure _ you want to settle in?” he says, though it’s not nearly as harsh as it might once have been. “Because they can’t even get a Christmas World here.”

Patrick’s lips press together, and then someone sits at the middle of the bar, and David figures their interaction is probably over. Nothing Patrick has said has indicated he feels the same as David about small town life, and people get a little touchy about that kind of thing, so David resigns himself to reading the three new texts Alexis has sent him—all variations on the thumbs up emoji, cheering hands, and kissy faces (ew)—but then Patrick is standing there, pointing to the stool next to him and asking, “Mind if I sit?”

And David, after a second of mute confusion, finds himself holding back a smile as he shakes his head. “No, go ahead.”

 

When he gets back to the motel a few hours later, Alexis greets him with a shimmy of her shoulders. 

“So...how’d it go with Matthew?” she asks. 

“Matthew?” David frowns. Alexis thwaps him on the shoulder. 

“Don’t play dumb, David,” she says. “This is the longest date you’ve been on, it must’ve gone well.”

“Right,  _ Matthew _ ,” David says. He spent exactly none of the time with Matthew. He shrugs. “He must have stood me up.”

“Then what were you doing all night?”

David shrugs again, pressing down on a smile. “Nothing,” he says. There was nothing exciting, really, about talking to Patrick for nearly three hours, except he keeps thinking about how Patrick had been smiling almost the whole time and how that thought makes him almost  _ giddy _ . Alexis keeps prodding at him, literally prodding with sharp nails until he locks himself in the bathroom and she finally gives up with a loud  _ Ugh, fine, David,  _ don’t  _ tell me _ , which just means she’s going to wait until morning to ask again. David doesn't find himself nearly as annoyed as he wants to be. 

**Author's Note:**

> this was a very fun prompt to fill (i hope i did it justice) and boy do i love writing patrick teasing david. what an asshole :')


End file.
